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Hudson: The third seems competitive.

Sloane: I have very little retail experience, but I’m excellent at mysterious silences.

Hudson: I don’t believe that for a second.

Sloane: You’ve never met me.

Hudson: You send long arguments about menu typography.

Sloane: Typography matters.

Hudson: I know. You explained it for forty minutes.

Sloane: And you’re welcome.

She was funny but not in a performative way. Her humor came sideways, buried inside observations she seemed to think were obvious. Sometimes I caught myself rereading messages because I liked the rhythm of her mind.

Several days after my investigation into our nonexistent blood relationship, she asked why I had disappeared from the chat most of the afternoon.

I’d been dealing with a broken water line at one of the Carpenter houses, then I’d mediated an argument between two teenagers over access to a running trail. After that, I’d had to sort out Grandma Ruth’s washing machine, because it had started making loud banging noises, and she was sure it was trying to communicate with her.

In a way, it had. The error code flashing on the small screen indicated an unbalanced load.

Hudson: Busy day.

Sloane: Define busy.

Hudson: Plumbing, conflict mediation, appliance interpretation.

Sloane: I’m sorry, appliance interpretation?

Hudson: Grandma Ruth’s washing machine was blinking.

Sloane: What did it say?

Hudson: Start washing one blanket at a time, not twelve.

Sloane: Did she accept the translation?

Hudson: She said machines have become judgmental.

Three dots appeared, disappeared. It was a while before they returned, as if she was hesitating to send what she was typing.

Sloane: Do people always call you first?

Nobody had ever asked me that. People noticed that I helped and thanked me. Sometimes they apologized for needing something, though usually only after I’d already solved the problem.

Hudson: Usually.

Sloane: Do you like that?

My first response formed automatically. Of course. I took pride in it. Being useful mattered. The pack needed reliability. Eventually, my mother would retire, and the pack needed to trust that their leader would be there when needed.

All of that was true.

It wasn’t the whole truth.

Hudson: Most of the time.